Eight years ago, Adrienne and I planted hop rhizomes in the corner of her parents garden: cascade, and nugget I think. Since then they’ve been neglected, growing kind of wild. We never trellised or harvested them. I thought they might not survive like this, but they seem to be hardy plants!

This year, a deer fence went up around the garden. The hops climbed all over it and produced an unexpected bounty. With so many hops just sitting there, I decided I’d finally try making a beer with them.

It’s hard to tell what varieties are still alive. Based on appearance I think we mostly got cascade this year.

I dried the hops by laying them on some window screens with a fan blowing through them. After drying, the hops ended up being about 12oz. Perfect for making a batch of IPA entirely from the homegrown hops.

At this point I had some reservations about the quality of the hops. They looked good, and had lots of visible lupulin, but they smelled a little.. off. It’s hard to put it into words, kind of an unexpected green, grassy, floral perfume smell? Not your typical cascade aroma

This batch was about experimentation though, so I pressed on with brewing.

Recipe

Batch size:      5.5 gallons
Target OG:       1.059
Target FG:       1.013
Target ABV:      6.2%
Caluclated IBU:  57.0
Calculated SRM:  5.1

Grain bill:
10.5lb US 2-Row   (84%)
1.5lb  Vienna     (12%)
0.5lb  Caravienne (4%)

Mash (Batch Sparge): 148 °F @ 1.5 qts/lb

Hops:
3.0 oz Homegrown Cascade  @ 60 mintutes (~45 IBU)
2.0 oz Homegrown Cascade  @ 15 minutes (~7 IBU)
2.5 oz Homegrown Cascade  @ 1 minute (~5 IBU)
4.5 oz Homegrown Cascade  @ Dry Hop at stable FG

Yeast:
WLP002 (Pitched on yeast cake of recent Bitter)

Notes

2020-09-13 - OG 1.059. Fermenting at 20C. All of the strange hop aroma seemed to cook off on the hot-side. Before fermentation this seemed like a pretty normal IPA.

2020-09-20 - Dry hopped. Since my air dried hops still smelled kinda green, I put these in a 140* oven for ~20 minutes before adding to the beer.

I had a lot of trouble with the hops floating. Had to open the hop bags after putting them in the beer so I could add more weight. In fear of oxidation, I added about 2.5 campden tablets total. Initally 1.5 with the hops, but them more after the open lid, floating hops fiasco. Going to keg in two or three days

2020-09-23 - Kegged with 1/2 tsp gelatin. FG 1.012. Gravity sample tastes exactly like the hops smelled. A little odd. Will wait for it to chill and carb before passing judgment. Bitterness level seems to be about right at least

2020-11-01 - Tasting notes:

Boy this is a weird one. The final beer smells exactly like the hops did, and that smell is.. non-traditional let’s say. It’s kind of floral/perfumy, but not in the way any normal “floral” commercial hops are. This stuff is strange.

I am very happy with the grain bill and yeast choice at least. I’d do this combo again when I want a west coast IPA.

I’m not going to drink much of this beer as-is. I’m not enjoying it. I plan to put three gallons in a carboy with a bunch of Brett and forget about it for a year or so. Maybe something good will come of this yet. I’m hoping the hops fade considerably, and maybe the Brett can transform some of the existing weird flavors too.

2021-01-24 - I had about 3 gallons of this left. Transferred it out of the keg and into a 3 gallon carboy with some brett dregs from Sapwood Sunlight of Bygone Days, one of my favorite recent funky but not sour beers. I hope time and brett will reduce and/or transform the weird hop flavors into something better. We’ll see. It didn’t cost anything to try.

Changes for next time

idk, buy commercial hops?